Free Coffee Scoop by Kathleen Y'Barbo Page A

detailing all she’d seen today. As an afterthought she added Millie to the recipient list the clicked the send button. She was just about to sign off when the sound of an Instant Message rang out.
    To be or not to be sleepy. That is the question.
    Ryan and his Shakespeare jokes. Carrie smiled.
    Not , she typed. Wide awake, actually.
    Me too , came the quick response. Want to talk awhile?
    Sounds great! As soon as she typed the words, she deleted them. It wouldn’t do to look overly excited. Why not? Again, she hit delete as soon as she finished typing the last letter. Finally, she settled for a more generic Yes.
    What seemed like only a few minutes later, Carrie yawned. How strange to be tired so early in the evening. She typed an answer to Ryan’s question then hit the toolbar key, causing it to appear at the bottom of her screen.  
    1:27. Carrie scrambled for the nightstand and the watch she’d removed earlier.1:29.
    Ryan, would you believe you’re supposed to be picking me up in 6 hours?
    After a brief pause, he sent another message. Want to keep talking or should be continue this conversation in the morning?
    Morning, she wrote, although she could have typed all night.  
    Alas, Ryan wrote, parting is such sweet sorrow.
    Smiling, she sent one last message. Upon the morrow then.
    The morrow arrived far earlier than she expected, leaving Carrie to believe the sun must rise on a different timetable in Costa Rica. She stumbled through the process of dressing and taming her hair, aided by the pot of steaming dark Negrita coffee and gallo pinto the innkeepers left on her doorstep.  
    Even in her sleepy state, she recognized gallo pinto, the bean, egg, and corn tortilla concoction from the research she’d done in preparation for the article. While she’d frowned on the mix of ingredients when she read about them, the actual taste of the national breakfast was a pleasing surprise.
    So was seeing Ryan waiting for her on the deck where she’d left him last night.  
    “Good morning,” he called as he walked over to give her a quick embrace. “Did you sleep well?”
    “Very,” she said. “How about you?”
      “Truthfully, I don’t remember sleeping, but I’m not complaining.” Ryan winked. “The conversation made the lack of rest worth it. So, Miss Collins, are you ready to see my corner of Costa Rica?”
    For the next two hours, Ryan acted as tour guide while Carrie took videos and notes, as well as the occasional photograph. In Grecia, they stopped in the shadow of the iron church. Painted red with white fretwork adorning the roof, the church sheltered a tidy little park where Ryan set out a picnic lunch for them.
    After lunch, they set toured Sarchi, where they toured the oxcart factory and a furniture maker’s shop then stopped at a small zoo. After much coercing, Carrie allowed Ryan to take her picture feeding the toucans, but only after he posed with a feisty hair-pulling macaw.   Before heading off for the mountains and the village of Rincon de Sales, Ryan pulled the truck over next to a sign advertising Heavenly Beans as the finest coffee in Costa Rica.
    “Thirsty?”
    “For your coffee, always,” she said with a grin.
    At a tiny table set on the edge of a lemon grove, Ryan surprised her by turning the conversation to the interview she’d all but forgotten about. “So, are you getting enough information to write your story?”
    The idea of doing the story she’d planned set poorly. Speaking to him about it on this glorious afternoon in this idyllic spot felt even worse.  
    “More than enough,” she said as she stirred a teaspoonful of sugar into her coffee. A thought occurred. Why not be honest and tell him of her concerns? If Ryan had nothing to hide, he wouldn’t mind, would he? After all, Mr. Renfro was certainly forthright in answering her questions.
    “Something wrong?”  
    She looked up to see Ryan watching her. “No,” she said quickly. “Just thinking.”
    A child’s laughter